


Lick Your Wounds

by winethroughwater



Category: Copycat (1995)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 11:16:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5454623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winethroughwater/pseuds/winethroughwater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She’s killed someone but your pulse is beating beneath her fingers"--set two weeks post-film.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lick Your Wounds

You don’t see her for two weeks after the rooftop, don’t see anyone.  Fourteen days melt into a haze of Valium and Merlot. 

You don’t go to Andy’s funeral and you haven’t had anyone in to fix the phone lines or to clean up the mess.

Two knocks at your door at noon and somehow you know it’s her.  You look through the peephole and see her in a ponytail and a faded Atlanta Braves sweatshirt that falls almost to her knees.  The space around her is warped around the edges like a fishbowl; she shifts from one foot to the other and peers back at you, a greasy bag in one hand and the other in a hospital-issued sling.

You unbolt the row of locks and she doesn’t wait for you to ask her in.  She just pushes past you and flops down on your couch, starts to dig through the bag with a crinkle of paper that might be the loudest noise you’ve heard in days. 

A cheeseburger you realize—you can read, after all, and there it is written in red across the yellow wrapper.  She takes a bite of hers then reaches into the bag again and offers one to you. 

You shake your head “no,” run a hand through your hair to sweep back the strands that feel plastered to your forehead and wonder just how obvious it is that you’ve been sleeping on your couch since that night.

You start to speak but she puts a hand up, swallows down a big bite of burger:  “Tell me something about yourself, something that doesn’t have anything to do with any of this.”

You look at her, at a loss.  At some point your life got swallowed up in this.  And you can’t remember how many pills you took this morning and if that’s why you can’t do anything but stare at MJ, sitting on your couch and eating a cheeseburger like it was the most normal thing in the world.

“I’ll start,” she lilts.  “In high school I was once the 8th best poultry judge in the nation.  Got a badge for my FFA jacket and a plaque.  My daddy was so proud.”  She is rambling in a way that makes you wonder if she is still on pain meds—and if they gave her the good kind, the kind they had refused to give you at the ER that night.

But you find yourself almost smiling at the thought of an even smaller version of Detective Inspector Monahan inspecting chickens.

“How did you ever leave such a bright future in animal husbandry behind?”  Your voice is hoarse from disuse more than the attack now.

* * *

 

You’re telling her about the night before handing in your dissertation when you ripped the last page out of the typewriter and wadded it up in a fit, how for an hour you were certain you’d become a writer instead, take some creative writing classes at night, med school be damned.  When you are about to tell her how frantically you fished that crumpled piece of paper off the floor, you notice that she is no longer looking at your face, that her lopsided grin has turned into a frown.

Your hand self-consciously covers your throat.  Livid bruises still ring it, the few places the wire had bit beneath the skin have scabbed and itch more than sting now.  

You sit stock still when she moves suddenly to straddle your lap.  Those doe eyes are fixed on yours again as she leans back and winces, sliding her left arm out of the sling.  But then her attention is back to your throat, fingers ghosting across the skin that a doctor had prodded not too long ago and none too gently before sending you for an x-ray. 

Her fingers pause; her forehead drops to yours and you know what she is thinking as you both silently count the beats. 

She’s killed someone but your pulse is beating beneath her fingers.

* * *

 

When she finally leans back, her fingers are fidgeting at the straps of your gown.  She bites her bottom lip and searches your face for permission.  You nod and it takes both of you working together to get the straps over your shoulders and your arms free. 

Then you’re naked to the waist and utterly exposed.

Three long, shallow cuts run down your chest—one caught the underside of your breast.  They didn’t require stitches and you pulled the butterfly tape off days ago but MJ touches your breast like it, like you, might break.

Her hips have started to rock against your thighs; the motions are so subtle that it occurs to you they might be unconscious.

She’s buried her face against your neck.  Her breath is right below your ear and her fingers have threaded through the back of your hair.

“Mary Jane--”

Her teeth add a fresh bruise to your throat.

* * *

 

She doesn’t protest when your hand finally moves and finds its way between her legs.  You can feel the heat even through the denim; you just cup were its warmest and bite your lip when she rubs harder, faster against the base of your palm. 

* * *

 

You can tell she comes when the fingers of her right hand tighten in your hair but she doesn’t cry out.  Instead you can feel her crying against your throat and then the sobs that wrack her chest. 

Your hands are up the back of her shirt and soothing up and down her skin, pulling her closer.

* * *

 

Later, her bad arm is resting on your hip and her breath is warm and steady against your shoulder blade.  It occurs to you that you really should be the big spoon when you do this again, but you’ll tell her some other time. 


End file.
